


Still Right Here

by Duck_Life



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Hurt/Not A Lot Of Comfort, Psychological Torture, Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies, Suicidal Thoughts, Survivor Guilt, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-06
Updated: 2017-01-06
Packaged: 2018-09-15 05:20:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9220445
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Duck_Life/pseuds/Duck_Life
Summary: Cassian spends the years after Scarif wondering why he survived when no one else did. One day he finds out.





	

Cassian Andor waits all day to die.

He can see Jyn lying yards away, torn away from him in the blast, and the Imperial base is in ruins but this damn rock beneath him stands firm. Scarif is alive and so is he, and he waits all damn day to die.

He can’t feel anything from the waist down, and he knows without looking that he’s badly burned, and he can smell his own melted skin, and he waits all day to die.

The stars pop into view above him, one by one, and he waits for them to call him home. He waits and he waits and he waits and he waits.

Cassian wakes up in a bacta tank as the fluid drains around his shoulders, and he looks through the thick transparisteel for his parents, for his old boyfriend Del, for Jyn, Bodhi, Baze, Chirrut. He finds no one but an unfamiliar med droid, so if this is heaven it’s not what it’s cracked up to be.

The droid helps him from the tank to a cot. “Fortunately, we were able to repair the damage to your spine and keep your burns from being fatal. The scars are irremovable, but you will be able to walk again.” Cassian just wants the droid to shut up. He wants Kay here to tell him he got hurt because he was being a dumbass. “Rest now.”

Cassian’s eyes are already closing— he’s exhausted and he _hurts_. “Wait,” he tells the droid weakly. “The Death Star. What of the Death Star?”

“The mission to retrieve the Death Star plans was a complete success, although you were the only survivor,” the droid informs him, and Cassian thinks he’d like to rewire the piece of shit until he understands what defines a _complete_ _success_ , because it’s sure as hell not the loss of life he saw on Scarif. “While you were undergoing treatment, the plans were delivered to Senator Mothma and the Death Star has been destroyed.”

“Destroyed,” Cassian repeats. “We won.” Galen was right, and the plans were worth it, and it was all worth it. It must have been. “We won.” And then he leans over the bed and vomits onto the floor.

Cassian floats in and out of consciousness. The med droid administers painkillers and nutrients, and Cassian halfheartedly plots ways to trick the droid into giving him just a little too much of the former. He waits and waits and waits and waits and waits and waits to die.

One day, he opens his eyes and there’s a young woman with long braided hair watching him. “I’m sorry,” she says when she sees his eyes open. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“Who cares.” Cassian shifts, trying to get a better look at her. “Who are you?”

“Leia Organa,” she says simply. “You knew my father.”

“Where is he?”

“He’s dead.” It had to have happened recently, but she sounds like she’s made her peace with it. Meanwhile, Cassian’s floundering in empty space, looking for something to grab on to. He knew Bail. He liked Bail.

“I’m sorry.”

“So am I.” She shifts immediately into a senatorial disposition. She is not grieving, she is not mourning. She has a job to do. “There’s going to be a medal giving ceremony for the brave men and women who gave their lives on Scarif,” she informs him. “I was wondering if you felt well enough to be there.”

Even if he did, he’d try to find a way out of it. Cassian knows about survivor’s guilt, and he’s experienced more than his fair share of it. This is different, and worse. He’s _lonely_. He doesn’t belong here. “I can’t,” he tells Bail’s daughter. “But— there was a man. An Imperial pilot, you need to make sure they don’t treat him like an Imperial pilot. Bodhi Rook. He was a rebel. He was a rebel all the way.”

She nods. “Of course.”

“And the droid,” Cassian says, already feeling like he’s expended his energy for the day just be speaking. “K-2SO. He was a hero, alright? It wasn’t just reprogramming.”

“Got it,” she says, standing up. “And— here. Since you aren’t coming to the ceremony.” She slips a medal around his neck.

On backward parts of Naboo, they used to stack heavy stones on the chests of suspected witches, crushing the breath out of them. That’s how he feels now with the weight of the medal pressing down on his lungs. “Thank you,” he says to the princess.

At night, Cassian hears a voice echoing through the empty medbay. He knows it can’t be real but he listens anyway. “You can live,” Chirrut says to him. “You can live.”

“What?” he says to the voice that can’t be real, shouldn’t be real.

“You were wondering what in the cosmos you could do for us.” And then he sees him, shimmering and blue and _real_ , sitting on the opposite cot, staff in hand, as infuriatingly cryptic as ever. “But you can live, Captain. For us. We are a part of the Force now, and the Force lives in you, and so if you live, you live with us, and for us.”

Cassian shakes his head. “You didn’t have to die,” he says, and his mouth tastes of copper and bitter, burnt promises. “All you were doing was protecting the kyber crystals.”

“We were protecting the galaxy,” Chirrut says. “And I think we did a good job.”

“Empire’s still out there,” Cassian says, rolling away so he doesn’t have to look at Chirrut’s ghost. “And you’re still dead.”

Slowly, slowly, Cassian gets back on his feet. He lives, and he lives with Chirrut’s quiet encouragements in one ear and orders from the Alliance in the other. Cassian throws himself into battle, vowing to himself to be one man who fights like ten men, a hundred, a thousand.

Surviving is much, much worse than dying.

He burns himself out, week after week, and Chirrut’s ghost haunts him with soothing tea recipes and well-intentioned advice. “Believe in the Force,” he tells Cassian, pleads with him. “Rely on it. But the Force cannot help you if you cannot help yourself.”

Cassian flies with Rogue Squadron during the Battle of Hoth and tries not to think about their namesake. He fights. He wins. He loses people.

“Why would the Force save me, then?” Cassian asks Chirrut’s ghost one night after he’s had too much Corellian brandy. “Why am I alive? Why not you, or Jyn, or, hell, K-2SO?”

Death did not restore Chirrut Îmwe’s sight, but Cassian can still feel the damn ghost staring at him. “Maybe the Force knew that you weren’t done yet.” Cassian fists his hands over his eyes like he can blot out the world, the galaxy, the whole damn universe. “Cassian—”

“I just want to be done,” he says, a low voice trying to keep from screaming. “God, I just want to be done.”

Cassian doesn’t have friends but he does have colleagues, people he talks to in order to sustain a veneer of stability. Bail’s daughter speaks with him occasionally, but he tries to keep those talks short. Her planet blew up; his world imploded. He’s terrified of looking into her eyes for too long and seeing everything he’s feeling reflected back. He’s cordial with some of the Rebellion higher-ups like Nien Nunb and Admiral Ackbar.

Wedge Antilles comes closest to being a friend, if Cassian let himself have friends. He’s a pilot defector like Bodhi was, and Cassian likes that but at the same time he tries not to think about it. He tries not to think about Bodhi at all because it _hurts_ , it all _hurts_. Over and over again he has to hear from the other rebels how important it is that they all honor the memory of Rogue One, and all he wants to do is scrub the memory away, forget it, stop the endless cycle of _hurt_.

“I’m sorry you’re in pain,” Chirrut’s ghost tells him one night, earnestly, honestly. “And I’m sorry you’re alone. But forgetting won’t fix anything, my friend. You cannot erase the past.”

“I know,” Cassian says. “The past is all I have.”

Wedge would be a good friend. Cassian knows this. As it is, Wedge is a good colleague. He knows when Cassian needs to talk and drink and he knows when Cassian needs to be left alone. He’s an exceptional pilot. A funny guy.

As Wedge is relaying some bizarre story about Tatooine he heard from Luke Skywalker, Cassian feels the corners of his mouth turning up despite himself. He smiles, and he laughs, and then he walks away without a word. It’s a few days before he speaks to Wedge again.

Chirrut tells him that it’s okay to form attachments. Chirrut tells him that they are all connected in the Force, anyway, and he might as well let himself laugh and smile and reach out to other people. Chirrut tells him it’s okay if he lets go, and it’s okay if he moves on, and it’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay.

“Here,” Wedge says, handing Cassian a cup of caf. They’re holed up in the base on 5251977, a tiny planet no one’s even bothered to name. It about captures the attitude of the Rebellion at this point— war hero Han Solo is in Hutt captivity, Vader and the Emperor reign more powerful than ever, and there are rumors that they’ve begun building a second Death Star. Cassian remembers Bodhi naming Rogue One and he wonders what Bodhi would name this rock. “How’re you feeling?”

“Like the worst day of my life happened for nothing,” Cassian says matter-of-factly, and he sips his caf. “Rebuilding the Death Star. Kriff.” He drinks and it scalds his tongue and he doesn’t care.

“Rebuilding it with the same flaw though,” Wedge says. “I guarantee it. They’ll always rely too much on that Galen Erso, even after his death.”

Cassian is on Endor when everything goes down. He fights alongside Bail Organa’s daughter and Luke Skywalker and war hero Han Solo. He fights, and he wonders when Wedge Antilles is going to be shot out of the sky. Nien Nunb and Ackbar surely must be dead by now. He fights, and he waits for everyone around him to drop dead, waits to lose everyone all over again.

He waits and waits and waits and waits and waits and waits to die.

And again, he doesn’t.

At night, they celebrate with the Ewoks. Wedge claps him on the shoulder before going off to hug Luke Skywalker. Cassian looks across the bonfire clearing and sees Chirrut’s ghost watching him, looking peaceful.

Beside him stand three others, Jedi Knights dead but not gone. Cassian recognizes Yoda, he’s seen holos of the old Master. The other two are unfamiliar.

Cassian wishes he could see Bodhi Rook. He wishes he could see Baze Malbus, Jyn Erso, K-2SO. He wishes he could see all those rebels who sacrificed themselves. He wishes he could see his parents, and Del, and everyone he’s had to give up since he was six years old.

The war is over but the fight isn’t. Cassian feels sick every time he sees people acting like things are back to normal so he volunteers for every mission he can. While his colleagues take a step back, Cassian throws himself into whatever he can.

“Why aren’t you with Baze?” Cassian asks Chirrut’s ghost the night before he and Wedge are scheduled to storm one of the stubborn, clinging Imperial bases. Since Chirrut showed up from beyond the dead, Cassian’s been wondering. “You’re always here. Where’s Baze? Why aren’t you with him?”

Chirrut leans against the wall opposite Cassian’s, staff in hands, reminding Cassian so much of that first night. “The Force has not chosen to bring us together again yet.”

“That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.” It’s out before Cassian can reel it in. He only knew Chirrut and Baze in life for a few days, but he knew where they belonged. If the Force was keeping them apart, then the Force was a sadistic joke, not the well-meaning entity Chirrut always made it sound like. “You should be with him.”

“I am with the Force,” Chirrut says. “And he is with the Force. So I am always with him.”

At the Imperial base, Cassian moves with ruthless precision, imagining himself a droid or a Stormtrooper or anything that’s easier than what he is. He gets orders, he follows them. He gives orders, they get followed. He shoots to kill. He sticks with Wedge while they search every chamber of the base, Alliance fighters around them taking some Imperials prisoner, killing others.

And then they reach an assembly hall with a screen like a theater, benches barren as officers scatter to more remote parts of the base trying to flee, trying to hide. One woman stands at the entrance to the large room, blaster aimed at Cassian.

“Rebel scum.”

But Wedge is too fast for her, and when he ducks around and sneaks up behind her, it’s all too easy to wrestle away the blaster.

The feed displayed on the large screen keeps going on, even though no one’s watching it.

And then Cassian’s watching it.

He sees a man bolted to a long table in an industrial room, screaming in pain. Wires attached to the nodes stuck to his forehead trail back into a control panel. One hand hovers over a switch on the panel, its owner obscured and off screen. “ _You are a traitor_ ,” the off screen man says. “ _That’s all you ever were, not a hero, not a pilot_.” He hits the switch and the man on the table screams even louder, writhing in his bonds. _“This is what you deserve_.”

Cassian feels like the ground is crumbling beneath his feet and he’s falling, falling, falling. “What the hell is this?” he says, waving his blaster toward the screen. Wedge and the Imperial officer seem confused, and Cassian realizes belatedly that he’s crying. “Tell me! Tell me what the hell is this.”

“It’s an educational broadcast,” the woman says. “Once a week we have to watch this scum-loving turncoat get tortured. Supposed to make us afraid to cross our superiors or something.”

“ _You_ …” Cassian looks at her with wild eyes. “Tortured? You watch him…”

For the first time since Cassian and Wedge showed up, the Imperial officer actually looks frightened. “Look, pal, I just work here.”

Cassian shoots her dead without thinking about it and spins back to face the screen. Wedge drops the dead officer and watches the captain, appalled. “Andor. _Andor._ ” He’s calling Cassian’s name, but Cassian doesn’t hear.

He looks at the screen and he watches Bodhi Rook being tortured.

* * *

 

 Surviving is much, much worse than dying.

Bodhi opens his eyes and the room is too bright. It isn’t home or heaven, it isn’t dusty Jedha City or the green of Yavin 4. He remembers contacting Raddus, the shield going down, and then the boom crash of explosives.

When he tries to move, he realizes his arms and legs are strapped down. He can’t budge from the table he’s on, and that’s when the panic threatens to break him.

“Shh shh,” he whispers to himself, squinching his eyes shut and wishing he had his goggles. His head feels bare and cold without them. “It’s okay. It’s okay. It’s okay.”

“It’s really not.”

In his panicking, Bodhi didn’t notice the man walk in. He recognizes him from holos and propaganda posters, though he’s never met the man before.

“Welcome to the Death Star,” Grand Moff Tarkin says, a sneer curling his mouth to the side. “Maybe now that you see how _accommodating_ we can be you’re having second thoughts about trying to blow us up, hm?”

Bodhi blinks rapidly, tries not to think about what must have happened to the rest of Rogue One. “They’re going… they’re going to shoot your wrinkled asses out of the sky, you slimy son of a bantha.” He doesn’t have to be brave. He can pretend to be brave. He can be enough.

Tarkin watches him like he’s examining a bug, and Bodhi tries not to squirm. The Moff is just a man, but Bodhi can’t help but remember Bor Gullet’s tentacles digging into his mind, scraping him raw. Tarkin looks like he could do the same thing, and intends to.

“If you’re going to kill me,” Bodhi says, “just do it.”

Tarkin grins and Bodhi can feel the panic flipping his stomach, and he wants his goggles back on his head, and he wants to see his friends, and he wants to be brave and he wants to be _done_. Tarkin says simply, “But then you’d never learn.”

And then he leaves.

Bodhi tries to stay conscious as much as he can and keep track of what’s happening around him, but Imperial officers keep coming in and administering drugs that knock him out or trap him in suffocating nightmares.

Sometimes they taunt him and hurt him before they leave, but he can tell that none of them have orders to do so. It’s fun for them to take out all their pent-up hate on someone who was stupid enough to try to join the Rebellion.

When he’s alone, Bodhi clenches his fists in the restraints, nails digging into his palms, and he tells himself who he is. “I’m the pilot,” he says into the quiet darkness. “I’m the pilot. I’m the pilot. I’m the pilot.” He delivered the message, but maybe it didn’t matter. The friends he flew with to Scarif are dead. “I’m the pilot.”

And then suddenly, one of the times he wakes up he knows he’s not on the Death Star anymore. He can tell; it’s an identical room but the shifting around him feels different. He wonders if the Death Star is gone. Any time he asks one of the officers assigned to him they just snarl and zap him with an electric rod, leaving tiny scorch marks peppered up his arm.

But he likes to believe that the Death Star is dust. He likes to believe that they got the plans to the Alliance, and that he was brave, and that he was enough.

He has no idea how long it’s been since Scarif on the day he meets the lieutenant.

The lieutenant is a thin man who comes to the room where Bodhi’s being kept and smiles at him with all his teeth. “Mr. Rook,” he says calmly, standing near Bodhi’s feet. “I hope you’re comfortable.”

Bodhi breathes in and out, shuts his eyes and opens them. He can be brave. “Really,” he spits back. “Then you should’ve sprung for a nicer room.”

The lieutenant doesn’t react. “I’m just here to talk, Mr. Rook,” he says. “I’m thinking we can help each other.” Bodhi won’t. He swears this to himself, over and over and over, has been for the whole time he’s been in captivity. They’ll come at him for information, and he’ll deny it. What little he knows about the Rebellion, he’ll carry with him to the grave. He swears this. “First, I was wondering… what can you tell me about the leadership of the Rebel Alliance?”

“I _am_ the leadership of the Rebel Alliance,” Bodhi says. “I’m the king. I’m the king of space. Ha.”

The lieutenant doesn’t look angry or annoyed. He simply, calmly, steps around the restraining table, takes Bodhi’s left hand and breaks his pinky finger.

Weeks pass. Maybe. Bodhi doesn’t know how to measure time. He counts his bruised and broken parts and takes a guess. The lieutenant comes and questions him, and Bodhi tells him to go to hell, and the lieutenant hurts him. It becomes a predictable pattern.

The lieutenant beats him, cuts him, burns him. Bodhi knows the Empire and he knows they have more sophisticated devices of torture. He knows the lieutenant is being barbaric because he wants to, because he wants to feel Bodhi break beneath his own hands.

Except one time he comes in with an interrogation droid and Bodhi feels his heart start racing. They aren’t only trying to hurt him now. They genuinely want what information he has, and they’ll break him for it. He needs to be ready. He can be ready.

Except when the droid starts in on him it’s like every nerve in his body is screaming out in pain. Bodhi’s lost, drowning in it, and terrified that he’ll do anything to stop the pain, including give away the few and precious secrets of the Rebellion he has. He can’t. _He can’t_.

Frantically, he grapples for something to hold onto, something besides pain and fear. _I’m the pilot. I brought the message. Galen Erso. Rogue One. It’s okay. It’s okay. It’s okay_. The droid doesn’t stop hurting him and Bodhi doesn’t stop feeling small and helpless and scared.

And in racking his brains for something to hang onto, he remembers words that a friend used to say, over and over again, a prayer, a cause, a promise. “I am one with the Force,” he whispers to himself as the droid sticks its needles in him. “And the Force is with me. I am one with the Force. The Force is with me. I am one with the Force.”

The pain stops, and Bodhi thinks for a second that maybe he’s finally died. But then he opens his eyes and sees the lieutenant watching him with that too-wide smile. He’s stopped the droid and is pacing toward Bodhi’s head. “The Force?” he says, a lilt in his voice. “You think you know the Force?”

Bodhi doesn’t know if he should respond or ignore, so he shuts his eyes again and keeps whispering. “ _I am one with the Force. The Force is with me_.”

The lieutenant slaps him, hard, and Bodhi stutters and stops. “Fool,” the lieutenant says. “You don’t know the Force. But I can show you.”

His hand goes to Bodhi’s forehead, cold fingertips and stiff Imperial uniform cuffs. And the Force isn’t gentle, and it isn’t a protector. It sinks into him and picks, picks at his brain. He can feel the lieutenant pilfering through his mind, digging his claws into Bodhi’s memories and fears and hopes.

“I’m…” Bodhi says, struggling. “I’m not… afraid of you.”

The lieutenant twists his fingers and Bodhi feels his thoughts scramble, anxiety thrumming in his bones. “Because of Gerrera’s monster?” the lieutenant asks. “You’ll find I’m much more talented than that beast.” And he reaches further into Bodhi’s mind.

Bodhi screams.

When he’s finally done, that first time, the lieutenant withdraws from Bodhi’s mind and cracks his knuckles. “Excellent.”

“You…” Bodhi tries, but he feels weak and rattled and a little shattered. “You aren’t a Jedi.”

“No,” the lieutenant says. “I’m really not.”

Bodhi dreams, and he dreams of Galen Erso. Galen stands before him and he places a hand on his shoulder and he tells him, “ _You can be brave. You can do right by yourself. You can listen to your heart_.” Bodhi nods; he wants to, he wants to so badly. “ _You can do all that_ ,” Galen says to him. “ _But it still won’t be enough_.”

Bodhi gasps awake in his white, white cell, presses his wrists against his restraints until the pressure calms him down. He doesn’t know if the dreams are something the lieutenant seeded into his brain or if they’re products of his own anguish.

“Galen Erso,” he mumbles to himself, because he needs to remember. He needs to remember what he did it all for. He needs to remember that before he was here he was a pilot, and he was a hero, and he was brave. “Cassian Andor. Jyn Erso. Baze Malbus. Chirrut Îmwe. K-2SO. Arro Basteren. Yosh Calfor.” He remembers all their names. That was his job. He was the pilot. “Eskro Casrich. Farsin Kappehl.”

One day after the lieutenant’s interrogation, he releases Bodhi’s restraints and lets him roam the cell freely. “As a reward,” he explains, “for all the _excellent_ information you’ve given us.”

He’s too far gone to even know what they found in his head. He only hopes it wasn’t enough for the Empire to do any more damage against the Rebellion. He hopes that in his time with the Rebellion they didn’t trust him enough to tell him anything important. He hopes and he hopes and he hopes.

Alone in his cell, he curls into a corner and holds his head in his hands.

The lieutenant comes and hurts him, with the Force, with machines, with his hands. Bodhi screams and cries and pleads for the end. Bodhi survives.

When he’s alone, he says the names over and over to himself. _Galen Erso. Cassian Andor. Jyn Erso._ _Baze Malbus. Chirrut Îmwe_. _K-2SO. Arro Basteren. Yosh Calfor. Eskro Casrich. Farsin Kappehl_. Ghosts in his head tell him they’re all dead because of him. Ghosts in his head tell him he’s somehow managed to be a traitor to both the Empire and the Rebellion.

“I’m the pilot,” he says. “I am one with the Force and the Force is with me.”

The lieutenant is in his cell with him, toying with his mind, when they hear the commotion outside. Alarms. Boots slamming through the corridors as officers run to face the threat. Someone calls out on the comms, “Lieutenant Snoke, we need to evacuate.”

And when he’s alone, Bodhi hopes this is it. He hopes he can finally be free.

He knows he’s right. He knows he’s dead, finally, because when he looks up, Cassian Andor is standing in the doorway. 

* * *

 

“Five years,” Cassian says, shouts it at Mon Mothma as he’s pacing across the D’Qar war room. “Five years since Scarif, and they’ve been _torturing_ him this whole time.”

“Rest assured, I am as horrified as you are,” the senator responds, her mouth tight. “If we had any idea there was another surviving member of Rogue One, of course I would have informed you. But remember that Bodhi Rook is still an Imperial officer. Even now, we can’t risk our own people going after an Imperial pilot.”

“Without Bodhi Rook there would _be_ no Rebel Alliance,” Cassian says, restless and unable to stand still because _Bodhi is out there_ , Bodhi is out there and alive and in pain. “And you just… you sit here and you act like your war is over—”

“Cassian, calm down,” Wedge says from beside him. He’s raring and ready to go get Bodhi, too, but he’s not up for yelling at Mothma.

“No, he’s right.” Cassian spins to see who’s speaking up for him— Bail’s daughter. Leia. “With all due respect, Senator, Bodhi Rook is one of our own. Captain Andor, I’ll go with you. I’ll help recover Bodhi Rook.”

She didn’t even know him, but Cassian thinks that’s just who Bodhi was. Is. He can start a fire in people he never even met.

“When do we leave?” Wedge says.

An undercover rebel relays the information about where the broadcasts of Bodhi’s torture are originating from— a Star Destroyer called the _Tyranus_. Wedge recruits the pilots from Rogue Squadron and they get ready to go.

In his room, Cassian’s pulling on his boots when the ghost appears in front of him. And without really meaning to, he’s suddenly screaming at Chirrut. “Did you know? Did you know about Bodhi? Did you know this whole time?”

“No,” Chirrut says. “I would have told you.”

Faith and friendship, solidarity. It should feel good. Cassian remembers that speaking with Chirrut is supposed to give him hope. But Bodhi is out there, and Bodhi is alive, and Bodhi is in pain.  

Cassian looks up and he’s surprised to see an actual ghost look so haunted.

Rogue Squadron heads for the _Tyranus_ , Leia flying in formation with them. Cassian’s been silent the whole time, since they left D’Qar, the jump to light speed, even now as they draw near the Star Destroyer. He thought surviving Scarif was the worst thing he ever had to live through. But knowing he _left Bodhi behind_ is eating away at him.

Before they left D’Qar, Cassian had come across Leia in a quiet moment and confided in her, “I wish Bodhi died on Scarif. Is that wrong?”

She’s too young to know as much about war as she does. So is he. So are they all. “I don’t know if it’s wrong,” she told him honestly. “But he probably wishes the same thing.”

Now, Wedge covers Cassian, taking tactical shots at the _Tyranus_ so Cassian can zip right into the landing bay. He hits a few Stormtroopers with his X-Wing’s weapons before jumping out of the cockpit and firing his blaster at everyone in sight.

Bodhi is here.

Cassian runs through the corridors, shooting everyone he sees. If he threw himself dangerously into missions before, he doesn’t know what to call this. The only thing keeping him alive and upright is the thought of Bodhi in one of these chambers, shaking and scared and alone.

Cassian turns a corner and surprises an officer, who he pins to the wall, shoves a blaster in his face. “Prisoners?” The officer just looks stunned. “Where do you keep the prisoners?”

The officer rattles off directions and Cassian promptly knocks him out. Cassian is gone, running away, before the man’s unconscious body hits the floor.

Hiding behind a wall, Cassian watches an Imperial lieutenant leaving one of the rooms in the area the man directed him to. He waits for the lieutenant to turn a corner, and then he hurries to the door and lasers the lock undone, storms through the door.

And there’s Bodhi, curled up on the floor, pale and too thin, warped hands gripping at his brittle hair. But when he looks up, when his eyes light up, Cassian sees the brave man he met on Jedha.

“Bodhi,” he says, worried his voice might break. The distance between them is too much, and Cassian rushes forward and sinks to the floor in front of Bodhi. “Bodhi, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Bodhi says, so soft and so quiet, his voice full of relief. “We’re done now. I’m finally dead.”

“N— no, no,” Cassian says quickly, wanting to reach out and hold him but afraid it will hurt him. “We’re still alive. Me, you. We have to get out of here.”

Bodhi’s face crumples. “No, no, no,” he whispers, all in a rush. “No, no, I want you to be real, no no no.” Cassian tries to take his hand but Bodhi jerks away, buries his face in his hands. “Want it to be _over_. It’s a trick and it’s a trick and it’s always a trick and it’s a trick and a trap and it’s a trick.”

“Bodhi,” Cassian tells him lowly, desperate. He can hear the battle raging around them, knows someone’s going to discover him any moment. “ _Please_. It’s really me.”

“Enough. Enough. Enough,” Bodhi says, rocking back and forth. “ _I am one with the Force and the Force is with me. I am one with the Force. The Force is with me_.” As Bodhi repeats his mantra, Cassian takes a better look at him. He’s missing fingers, and the ones left are bent and swollen like they were broken and healed wrong. There are scars, burns on his feet and arms and bruises decorating his chest and legs. Lines of old cuts trace up and down his abdomen, his neck, his arms.

And there’s other things Cassian notices, too. Scabs on Bodhi’s face like he’s been clawing at his own skin, chunks of hair missing that could have been ripped out by Bodhi himself. They did more than hurt him in this room. They wrecked him.

“ _I am one with the Force and the Force is with me_ ,” Bodhi says.

“Chirrut Îmwe used to say that,” Cassian says, trying to find a way to get through to Bodhi. At the moment, it isn’t even about escaping or surviving. It’s about stopping Bodhi from looking so tormented. “Do you remember him?”

“Chirrut Îmwe. Baze Malbus,” Bodhi says in recognition. “Galen Erso. Jyn Erso. Cassian Andor.”

“Cassian Andor,” Cassian says, pointing to himself. “It’s really me. Please, _please_ believe me.”

“Cassian Andor,” Bodhi repeats, and slowly, slowly, he holds out one hand and presses it against Cassian’s chest. Cassian brings his own hand up to cover Bodhi’s and hold it there. “Cassian Andor.”

“I am one with the Force,” Cassian says. “And the Force is with me.”

Bodhi nods, and tears leak from his tired eyes. “Let’s go.”

Cassian helps him up, and as they walk he realizes that one of Bodhi’s legs was broken and, like his fingers, healed wrong. Hate boils in his stomach but he tries to push it down as he and Bodhi hobble toward freedom.

“I wish I had my goggles,” Bodhi says suddenly, sounding so much like himself that it makes Cassian’s chest ache.

“I’ll buy you some new ones,” he promises as they round a corner.

Quietly, Bodhi says, “But I want mine.”

They walk, and then Cassian’s comm goes off. “We’ve got you cleared for exit,” Leia says. “But we’re under a lot of fire out here. We can get you out here, but I can’t guarantee that the Squadron is going to get out.”

Cassian shuts his eyes, takes a deep breath. “Yes you can,” he says into the comm. “Give me ten minutes and I’ll give you a way out.” He looks at Bodhi. “I know you’ve been through hell. But. Are you up for flying an X-Wing?”

Bodhi nods, stops to think, and then nods again. “What’s your plan?”

“I’m gonna blow this thing to pieces from the inside.”

They stand there, frozen for a moment, and then Bodhi starts shaking his head. “No, no, no,” he says, heart thudding in his ears. “I’m n— I’m not leaving you. I’m not leaving you in here with… _them_. I’m not leaving you.”

“Bodhi.”

“I need to do this,” Bodhi says, shaking, and he’s remembering the lieutenant telling him in detail everything they were going to use him for. They were going to reprogram him like a goddamn machine. The lieutenant told him he was going to be a better weapon against the Rebel Alliance than the Death Star ever was, and he was so, so scared that he wouldn’t be able to stop it. “I need to do this,” Bodhi says. “I need to be enough to do this.”

“I came here to save you,” Cassian says.

“I know,” Bodhi tells him, and his eyes are so full of light. “You did save me. Thank you.” Where his hands clutch Cassian’s arm, he squeezes, trying to convey comfort. “Now we need to save the rest of them.”

Cassian looks at him, so battered and broken and so, so brave. “Okay,” he says finally. “Together.” He stuffs the comm link back in his vest pocket and walks with Bodhi down the hall. “Now, you’ve been on Imperial Star Destroyers before, right? Where do we find the reactor core?”

Bodhi directs and Cassian helps get him there. “Did…” Bodhi starts, shaking old nightmares out of his head. “On Scarif. Did anyone else…?”

Cassian shakes his head. “I didn’t know you were captured,” he swears, stopping a moment to let Bodhi catch his breath. “I just… I found out a few days ago. Came and got you as soon as I could. I promise.”

“I know,” Bodhi says, standing up and moving along with Cassian again. “And I know you’re real.”

Cassian wants to tell him everything. The years he’s spent alone, his talks with Chirrut’s ghost. He wants to tell Bodhi how he’s become a legend and a hero, that rebel pilots tell their children bedtime stories about Bodhi Rook, the hero who followed his heart. He wants to tell Bodhi about the medal ceremony that neither of them made it to.

But they get to the reactor, and the end of the line. The corridors are empty— most of the Imperials must have fled.

“This panel,” Bodhi says, tapping the wall. “Remove it and there’s— there’s a switch.” Cassian does, and he finds the switch.

“You can still go,” Cassian tells him.

Bodhi shakes his head. “You’re not going to be alone,” he says. “I want to be done. I want to be enough.”

Cassian leans forward, presses their foreheads together. “You are enough,” he promises Bodhi. “You were always enough.” He tucks Bodhi’s hair behind his ear.

Cassian’s wondered for so long why he didn’t die. Why he had to live, and later, why Bodhi was taken. This was why.

He looks around and doesn’t see Chirrut, and Cassian hopes that he’s finally with Baze. He puts a hand on the switch, and Bodhi puts his own hand over Cassian’s. After all the damage done to him and to his pilot’s hands, his palm is still soft and warm.

“I wish I had my goggles.”

“I’ll buy you a new pair,” Cassian promises. And they pull the switch together.


End file.
